FORT WORTH, Texas _ In 1917, 118 black soldiers were charged with murder, mutiny, aggravated assault and disobeying orders after a race riot in Houston. Nineteen of the soldiers were eventually hanged.
More than 100 years later, Priscilla Graham, a Houston author and historian, is among those seeking to have all the soldiers pardoned on the basis that their arrests and trials were unjust.
Graham has written to President Donald Trump and before him President Barack Obama asking for the pardons but has yet to receive a reply from the White House.
Actor James McEachin, the author of a fictionalized account of the trial of the soldiers titled "Farewell to the Mockingbirds," said he has tried to bring attention to the injustices that followed the riot and is also pushing the government to pardon those who were executed.
McEachin and Kyev Tatum, pastor of New Mount Rose Baptist Church in Fort Worth, were in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 10 and Nov. 11, lobbying for the pardons during the Centennial Commemoration of Veterans Day.
McEachin served in the 24th Infantry Regiment, the same Army unit in which the executed men served. They are known as Buffalo Soldiers. McEachin said he cannot let go of what he believes is a calling to right a wrong.
"I've tried my darnedest to get this story out," McEachin said. "Getting this pardon will not be an easy fight. I'm kind of ashamed of myself. I should have started this movement a long time ago."
The Aug. 23, 1917, race riot resulted in the deaths of at least 15 whites and four black soldiers and the subsequent jailing of more than 100 others. It was triggered by the rough arrest of a black woman.
The riot, also referred to as the Camp Logan Mutiny, is believed to be the only racial insurrection in the United States in which the white death toll exceeded the number of blacks who died. The largest court-martial in U.S. history followed the unrest, historians say.
Graham says the investigation that preceded the trial and the trial itself were shams, tainted with the same Jim Crow attitudes that triggered the unrest. For example, soldiers who didn't sign the duty roll, missed roll call or were found to be off base during the night of the riots were presumed to be rioting and summarily arrested, according to Graham and other historians.
"There was no investigation," Graham said. "Some of those who were found guilty probably were. But there was no way to tell which people actually fired the bullets that killed the people who died. There were soldiers who were hung who maintained until the end that they were not involved in the riot."
Soldiers wrote letters home to their parents and friends, saying they had been sentenced to hang and vowed that they were not involved, Graham said. But it didn't matter, she said.
"A lot of the soldiers just got caught up because of the color of their skin and because they weren't accounted for," Graham said. "You can't just look at the testimony and you can't believe the newspaper accounts. You have to look beyond those."
